Is there a search based replacement for parent in page attributes?

Hi Everyone,

When adding/editing a page one can use the Parent dropdown under Page Attributes to choose a page to be the parent of the current page. This becomes quite unwieldy as the number of pages increases that could be parents…if we get into the hundreds it becomes practically unmanageable.

I know there are plugins that provide a separate interface for organizing pages, such as Nested Pages and I found an older abandoned plugin called Select Parent Page Drop Down that works by allowing one to choose which pages should be available from the drop down as parents…but I haven’t been able to find much else.

I’m wondering if anyone is aware of any plugins that help make the Page Attributes –> Parent dropdown more manageable? The disadvantage I see to the more commonly available plugins that use a separate page like Nested Pages is that they require two steps to create a page:
1. Create page at appropriate place in Nested Pages hierarchy.
2. Edit and publish page.
Or
1. Edit and publish page.
2. Move page to appropriate place in Nested Pages hierarchy

It seems to me that the ideal UI for this would be similar to what we have with Menus where one begins typing in the desired page and a relevant list is surfaced. Even better would be a combination that provided a dropdown that returned less results the more one entered into the search field.

Is there such a plugin in existence? Or is there another better way to manage page hierarchies?

Is anyone aware of a reason why a similar UI to that used with Menus is not implemented with Page Attributes –> Page? Is it simply that it hasn’t been a priority or is there a technical reason I’m missing?

Thanks!
Dave